THE CABARET DANCER
It was eleven o'clock when they entered the revolving door of the
restaurant appointed, and faced a group of lounging attendants in the
lobby; cynical-eyed servitors, all. Tony Adriance was recognized by
these with a vivifying promptness; at once he was surrounded, addressed
by name, had officious service pressed upon him. It was strange to the
girl to see him so familiar in this place where she never had been;
strange, and a little disquieting. But her grave poise was undisturbed.
She left her simple hat and coat with a maid, aware of their
unsuitability for the place and hour.
They did not enter the crowded room to their right, where an orchestra
was overwhelming all other and lesser din with a crashing one-step.
Instead, Anthony turned up a shining marble stair with a plush-cushioned
balustrade and too much gilding. Elsie viewed herself beside him in
mirrors set in the wall at regular intervals.
The stairs ended at an arcaded hall, beyond which lay a long, brilliant
room, comfortably filled with people at supper. Filled, that is,
according to its arrangement: the entire central space of gleaming,
ice-smooth floor was empty, the tables were ranged around the four
walls. The guests here wore evening dress, for the most part, so that
the room glowed with color, delicate, vivid or glaring, as the taste of
the owner dictated. Here there was comparative quiet; the voices and
laughter were lower in pitch than down-stairs.
"Is Mr. Masterson here?" Anthony questioned the head waiter, who
hastened to meet the arriving couple.
"Not yet, Mr. Adriance," the man answered deferentially. "At twelve, he
comes. May I show you a table, sir?"
"Yes. Not too near the music--Mrs. Adriance and I want to hear each
other speak."
"Certainly, sir. The drum _will_ be loud, sir; but the dancers like it."
Elsie caught the man's side glance of respectful curiosity and interest
directed toward herself, and understood why Anthony deliberately had
fixed her identity as his wife. Pride warmed her, and love of his
consideration for her; suddenly she was able to enjoy the scene around
her. She felt no self-consciousness, even when the elaborately gowned
and coifed women glanced over her appraisingly as she passed by their
tables. She looked back at them, serenely sure of herself. She was not
at all aware that many of the men stared at her with startled admiration
of a visitor alien to this atmosphere. Adriance saw well enough,
however. Elsie had an innocent dignity of carriage that, joined with her
gravely candid gaze, was not a little imposing. Moreover her pure,
bright color and clear eyes were disconcertingly natural beside the
artificial beauties. Pride of possession tingled agreeably through him;
he had not thought of this or expected the emotion.
When the two were seated opposite one another, the regard they exchanged
was of glowing content. Adriance ordered supper with the interest of
appetite and with a fine knowledge of her tastes and his own. Then, at
ease, they smiled at each other. The extravagance of the feast was of no
moment. The utter simplicity of their daily life made Anthony's salary
more than sufficient; they already possessed the resource of a bank
account.
So far, there had been no music, except faint echoes from the room
below. Now a tinkle of strings sounded delicately, swelling from a
single note into a full, minor waltz melody. Turning, Elsie saw the
musicians. They were negroes; not a band or an orchestra, merely a
pianist, two men with mandolins and as many with banjoes, and one who
handled with amazing dexterity a whole set of sound producers; a drum,
cymbals, bells, a gong, even an automobile horn. From one to another
instrument, as the character of the piece demanded, this performer's
hands and feet flew with accuracy and ludicrous speed. But the music was
more than good, it was unique, inspired; it snared the feet and the
senses. All round sounded the scraping of chairs pushed back, as men and
women rose to answer the call. In one short moment the place changed
from a restaurant to a ball-room.
It was such a ball-room as Elsie Adriance never had glimpsed in either
her Louisiana or restricted New York experiences. The women were
costumed in the extreme fashions of a year when all fashion was extreme.
As the dancers swayed past in the graceful, hesitating steps of the last
new waltz, there were revelations;--of low-cut draperies, of skirts
transparent to the knees, with ribbon-laced slippers jewelled at heel
and buckle glancing through the thin veil of tinted chiffon or lace. The
scene had an Oriental frankness without being blatant or coarse. At the
tables there was much drinking of wine and liqueurs, but as yet no
apparent intoxication. Some of the women who were not dancing smoked
cigarettes as they chatted with their companions; not a few of these had
white hair and were obviously matrons, respected and self-respecting.
"What do you think of it?" Adriance inquired, after watching his wife
with mischief in his eyes.
"I don't know," she slowly confessed. "You know, I am an outlander. But
I am not so stupid as to misunderstand too badly. These people are--all
right?"
"Yes; most of them. This is the after-theatre crowd. Some are from the
stage, some from the audience. That lady in green chiffon who looks as
if she had forgotten to put on most of her clothes is the wife of one of
my father's business associates. Did you see her husband bow to us as we
came in? The little black-eyed girl in the black velvet walking-suit, at
the next table, is La Tanagra, who does classic dances in a yard of pink
veil. She is a very nice girl, too. Of course, some of them----" He
shrugged.
The music stopped. Through a press of laughing, flushed people returning
to their tables, a waiter wound a difficult passage with the first
course of the supper Adriance had ordered.
Guests entered the room in a thin, constant stream, as the hour
advanced. But there was no sign of Masterson. Elsie wondered what he
would say on finding her with Anthony. Would he be angry, indifferent,
disconcerted? Perhaps he would not come alone.
A sharp, imperious clang of cymbals rang out abruptly, hushing the
murmur of voices and laughter. Elsie started from her abstraction, and
saw all eyes turned toward the centre of the room.
"Demonstration dance," smiled Adriance. "Now you'll see something!"
A short, dark man and a woman in yellow gauze through which showed her
bare, dimpled knees, stood alone on the floor. At a second clang of
cymbals they floated with the music into a strange, half-Spanish,
half-savage dance; a dance vigorously, even crudely alive and swift as a
flight. The woman was not beautiful, but she was incredibly graceful.
Her small, arched, flashing feet in their gilded slippers recalled a
half-forgotten line to Elsie.
"'And her sandals delighted his eyes----'" she quoted aloud. "Do you
remember that, Anthony?"
But Adriance was laughing at her.
"Infant!" he mocked. "Wait until you've seen it as often as I have, and
then you will not let your supper grow cold. There, it's over!"
It was. The dance ended with the dancers in each other's arms, glances
knit, lips almost touching. The applause was courteous. The audience,
like Adriance, was too sophisticated to be readily excited. It really
preferred to do its own dancing.
The preference was gratified during the next half hour. One-step,
fox-trot and a Lulu Fado followed in smooth succession. The room was
very full, now. One or two parties began to show too much exhilaration.
"I wish Fred would come," Adriance remarked, with a restive glance at
the noisiest group. "I don't want you to be here much after midnight. I
wonder----"
He was interrupted by a second crash of brazen cymbals that struck down
the chatter and movement of the crowd. With the harsh, resonant clang,
and continuing after it had ceased, came the soft chime of a clock
striking twelve.
This time a more decided interest greeted the announcement. In fact, a
distinct thrill ran through the room. Men and women abandoned forks and
glasses, turning eagerly toward the entrance. A marked hush continued in
the place.
"Some celebrity," Adriance interpreted, impatiently. "Confound
Masterson's whims--why couldn't he have seen me at home? Now he can't
get in until this is over."
The music had commenced--a tripping languorous ballet suite from a
famous opera. Into the large, square arch of the doorway a girl drifted
and stood.
She was a sullen, magnificent creature, as she faced the audience. Her
full, red mouth was straight-lipped, returning no smile to the welcoming
applause. It was not possible to imagine a dimple breaking the firm
curve of her rouged cheek. Elsie thought she never had seen a woman so
indisputably handsome, or so utterly lacking in feminine allure. Heaps
of satin-black hair framed her face and were held by jewelled bandeaux;
her corsage was dangerously low, retained in place by narrow strings of
brilliants over her strong, smooth, white shoulders. Her skirts were
those of the conventional ballet: billows of spangled rose-colored
tulle. As she began to dance, her eyes, very large and dark behind their
darkened lashes, swept the spectators with a sombre alertness. Elsie
felt the glance pass across her and rest on Anthony. Yes, rest there,
for an instant of fixed attention! But Adriance showed no change of
expression to his wife's questioning regard; he watched the dancer with
a placid interest, without evincing any sign of recognition.
It was a curious dance, as singularly stripped of womanly allure as the
girl's beauty. Yet it was graceful and clever. She bent and swayed
through the measures, circling the room with a studied coquetry cold as
indifference; posing now and then with a rose she lifted to touch lips
or cheek. The audience looked on with a sustained tension of interest
that the performance did not seem to warrant. Elsie noticed that the men
laughed or evinced faint embarrassment if the dancer leaned toward them,
but the women clapped enthusiastically and sent smiling glances. What
was it that these people knew, but which she and Anthony did not? There
was something----
Just opposite the Adriances the dancer had slipped in executing an
intricate and difficult step. She staggered, catching herself, but not
before she had reeled heavily against Elsie's chair.
"Pardon!" she panted, her voice low. "The floor is too polished!"
For a moment her eyes looked full into Elsie's, and they were not dark,
but a very bright blue. The brush of her naked arm and shoulder left a
streak of white powder on the other's sleeve; a heavy fragrance of
heliotrope shook from her garments. Before Adriance could rise she was
gone.
"Confounded clumsiness!" he exclaimed, with suppressed anger. "Did she
hurt you, Elsie?"
"No. Oh, no! Anthony, I know her--I knew her eyes."
He stared at his wife.
"You know her!"
"I recognized her eyes. I do not know who she is, I cannot think; yet I
know her. She knew me, too; I saw it in her face. And I believe she
knows you."
"Elsie!"
"She looked---- Wait; she is finishing!"
The music was indeed rising to a finale. The dancer glided to the
central arch through which she had entered, poised on the verge of
taking flight, then raised both hands to her head.
The black wig came off with the sweeping gesture. The dancer was a man,
whose short-clipped auburn hair tumbled in boyish disorder about his
powdered forehead. But there was no look of boyhood in his face, as he
turned it toward Adriance's table; the familiar, reckless face of Fred
Masterson.
The room was in an uproar of laughter and applause. But the dancer
disappeared without acknowledging or pausing to enjoy his success;
indeed, as if escaping from it.
When Elsie ventured to look at her husband, he had one hand across his
eyes. He dropped it at once, but avoided her gaze as if the humiliation
were his own.
"Finish your coffee," he bade, his voice roughened by a dry hoarseness.
"I want to get out of this--to get home."
"We have not spoken to Mr. Masterson," she hesitatingly reminded him.
"He asked us to meet him."
"I suppose I have seen what he wanted me to see."
The waiter was beside them again, checking her answer. It seemed to
Elsie that the man eyed Anthony with a furtive and malicious
comprehension. Had he ever seen Tony Adriance with Mrs. Masterson, she
wondered? Did he imagine--she thrust away the thought.
"After all, dear, aren't we prejudiced?" she essayed, unconvinced and
unconvincing reason. "Isn't it really as if he were an actor?"
"No, it isn't! You know it's not. It isn't what he does that these
people applaud; they applaud because he does it. He succeeds by making a
show of himself, his name, his position. The grotesqueness of his being
here succeeds, not his work. Well--are you ready?"
"Yes," she answered, submissive to his mood.
He paid the check, and they passed out. Elsie recovered her hat and coat
from the maid, in the dressing-room below. She was too preoccupied to
notice the attendant's inquisitive scrutiny, or the frank stare of a
fair-haired girl who was making up her complexion with elaborate care
before one of the mirrors. It would not have occurred to her, if she
had, that word had passed down the staff of servants that the quiet
girl in black was Mrs. Tony Adriance. But without knowing her own plain
attire had the reflected lustre of cloth-of-gold, she was too feminine
not to embrace with a glance of faintly wistful admiration the furs,
velvets and shining satins of the wraps left in this place by the other
women. No preoccupation could quite ignore that array. There was one
coat of gray velvet that matched her own eyes, lined with poppy-hued
silk that matched her lips. A trifle dismayed by her own frivolity, she
hastened out from the place of temptation. Anthony was waiting for her.